Monday, April 14, 2014

(2,14)

"... I would like to beg you dear sir, as well as you can, to have patience with everything unresolved within your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language."   
Rilke

As a teacher I don't want to be afraid of a little mystery and I don't want to be in hurry to give answers away so easily. When we ask Dr. Martin questions she usually responds, "Why would you, why wouldn't you?" She will let us explore a little bit; and we usually arrive to an answer once we process our question aloud. Then not only do we have an answer but we own it.

Dr. Martin is exceptionally knowledgable in her area of expertise; but when we come to unknown answer, instead of just looking up an answer quickly, we dive in together to find a possible solution. 

We see many opportunities of what mini lesson would like in an elementary classroom by what we experience in Reading Methods. When looking at a text with a class, like a Shared Reading, there will be unknown answers to the students and maybe even the teacher. What a perfect chance to help the students to look at a problem, see what their background knowledge says and make a prediction. 

What I have loved is seeing modeling of this aspect with Dr. Martin and Ms. Bryce. When we have questions Dr. Martin will say, "Why would you, why wouldn't you?" With  Ms. Bryce she will ask them how they come up with answers that they give. 

Let's love questions! Let's see unknown as adventure and fear of failure as a chance to learn no matter what the outcome may be. 




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